Crusades is a term that has different definitions, that is why we will explain the most important ones. This word is used to refer to certain military expeditions that were made at the end of the 11th to the 13th centuries, carried out by Christians in order to regain control of some Holy Lands, receiving this name because the soldiers carried a cloth cross that they used as a badge.
These crusades were fought with various types of collectives that belonged to other religions, being the Muslim, the Jewish, the Orthodox and the Mongols, the main ones. There are several theories that exist about this type of confrontation and the reason for the fighting, however most experts point out that they only obeyed religious belief.
The ringleader of this type of conflict came from the church, being Pope Gregory VII the first to have this responsibility, since it was considered to unite all Christian countries to fight against Islam considered as a common enemy. Later, Pope Urban II was in charge of launching the first crusade.
Although this concept has been extended to a whole struggle led in favor of a religious idea, in a strict sense, it has to be crusade responds to a political conception that took place in Christendom from the 11th to the 15th century, in which the peoples were joined to fight against the followers of other religions and dominate certain spaces.
This type of crusade lasted approximately two hundred years, being the most affected peoples, those who had Muslim descent, as well as anyone who opposed the religious ideas implanted by the church and who were against the Christian leader of the day.
Given all this, it is had that the crusades were a tool used by the church to recover holy land, however, the bottom line of everything was to satisfy the hegemony and take control of the citizens. Within the force exerted by the crusades there was a strong religious fervor and possibly the need not to miss the Lord's designs, to comply with his church.
Those who made up the crusades were people who received an indoctrination and where they received from the hands of the Pope on duty, a cross that identified them. Among all the crusades made by these people, perhaps the most important is what is known as the eastern crusades.